Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Levi Ethan Morgenstern Aka Fish. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Levi Ethan Morgenstern , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Do you feel you or your work has ever been misunderstood or mischaracterized? If so, tell us the story and how/why it happened and if there are any interesting learnings or insights you took from the experience?

Historically, a large part of the American population associated tattoos and tattooing with rowdy bikers, drunken sailors, and other less-than-desirable members of society. However, over the course of my career that has faded away and more and more people are getting tattooed for all sorts of reasons. They can vary from memorials for family, friends or pets that have passed all the way around to ‘That looks cool’ and everything in between.

Tattoo equipment has advanced greatly from the old school coil machines with their foot switches, clip cords, and counter top power supplies to self-contained rotary pen-style machine with battery packs. With the coil machines, you had to have a different machine set up for each function such as lining, shading, and color. Now with rotaries, they work with interchangeable cartridges for the different needle sizes and groupings

The art of tattooing has also advanced by leaps and bounds going from the American Traditional style that has been around for over 100 years and was made famous by Sailor Jerry Collins and Don Ed Hardy to new artists whose styles can look like oil paintings, embroidered patches, stickers, or just pure photo realism.

Levi Ethan Morgenstern , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I am a tattoo artist in Coral Springs, FL. I’ve been at this for over 29 years. I started out with my tattoo apprenticeship while I was still active duty in the US Navy. I served for eight years as a Hospital Corpsman with specialties in combat trauma and psychiatry. I got out of the Navy at the end of 1995 to tattoo full time, initially in Washington DC. I relocated to Coral Springs in 2002 and I’ve been at my current studio since September of 2002. I purchased the shop three and a half years again and I finished re-theming into The Levi & Lili Tattoo Company this year. I describe the studio as what you’d get is ‘Tim Burton filmed The Addams Family in the Haunted Mansion’- spooky yet fun.

I’ve been obsessed with tattoos since I was a small child, likely due to my grandfather’s tattoos he got in Europe during World War II. I was always hoping I’d get the lick and stick tattoos in Cracker Jack boxes. I got my first tattoo at 18 years old while I was in Hospital Corps school at Great Lakes, IL, just north of Chicago. I remember being scared beforehand and after, I left the shop telling myself “I did it. That’s it. No more, never again.” A month later, I was back in the tattoo chair in Jacksonville, NC when I was at Camp Lejeune to learn how to treat Marines in the field.

I don‘t have a particular style of tattooing I do exclusively but there are certain style I enjoy more such as illustrative black & grey realism, bold color work, geeky pop culture tattoos such as Star Wars, comic book and horror movie tattoos, and blackwork focusing on the beauty in the darkness of the world. I also do a good amount of cover-up and repair work for clients who are unhappy with their existing tattoos. Every tattoo has its own challenges and cover-ups can have some of the biggest challenges out there.

Throughout my career, I’ve strived to do all styles well rather than limiting myself to one particular style. My mentor drilled into my head that I needed to do every tattoo that came through the door and do it well because if I didn’t, someone else would. Over the last few years, I’ve stepped back from doing everything myself and sharing the workload with the other artists at the studio, especially if they do specialize in the particular style.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I think one of the biggest things I had to break down in my career is ego. So many tattooers early on in their careers get inflated egos because we have clientele constantly telling us how great we are. When you hear something often, it’s very easy to start believing it. About fifteen years ago, I was so full of myself. I tried out for Ink Master for a couple of the early seasons thinking I had what it took. Then a co-worker who’d been tattooing a good bit longer than me ripped my work apart, pointing out so many things that needed improvement. This was one of the best things that could’ve happened to me because it made me focus on actually improving rather than stagnating. Now, I will be the first one to say that there are much better tattooers out there, even in the area but there are also a whole lot more that are not as good as I am. I’m constantly trying to get better. In fact, I want every tattoo I do to be better than the last. Sometimes I achieve this but sometimes I don’t I am only human, I really put a focus on my work in that there is no tattoo that is ‘just a name’ or ‘just a butterfly’ or what have you. We don’t know why the clients want their particular tattoos and they could be one of the most important pieces of their life. Every mark I make in skin needs to be done with purpose. In fact, I tattooed the word ‘PURPOSE’ in bold letters on my left forearm as a constant reminder of this.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

When I originally tried to move from the DC Metro area to South Florida in 2000, I’d come down to check out the local studios and to apply. One of the big shops back then had an opening and everyone seemed to like my work and was open to hiring me but I had to send a portfolio to the actual owner in New York. Having a new job seemingly locked down, I went back to DC, made a presentation portfolio and shipped it off to New York. I then packed up my apartment into a U-Haul and headed south. I was in South Carolina when the owner in New York called my cellphone and bluntly told me that I wasn’t good enough to work for him. It was devastating but I was determined to restart my life down here. Once in Coral Springs, I wasn’t able to find a studio I could work at as the industry was much smaller back then. After a few months with no luck, I moved back to DC having secured a job at another studio in the Metro area. The shop I’d started at in 1995 had closed when I left because the owner didn’t want to actually run a business, just collect the money. I knew of another studio that often had ads for artists in the local City Paper so I called them and the owner hired me on the spot, as he was familiar with my work and reputation. After almost two years at that studio, I came back to South Florida and, after trying a couple shops in North Palm Beach and Sunrise, I found my home here in September of 2002

Contact Info:

• Website: Http://www.LeviLili.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fishink_tattoo https://www.instagram.com/levililitattoo
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LeviLiliTattooCompany
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/levi-and-lili-tattoo-company-coral-springs

Image Credits

All photos are by Michael Fisher aka Levi Ethan Morgenstern